Professor Natasha Bakht has been awarded the 2021 Huguenot Society of Canada Award (PDF, 194.07 KB) by the Ontario Historical Society (OHS) for her 2020 book In Your Face: Law, Justice and Niqab-Wearing Women in Canada (Delve Books). The award recognizes the best book published in Ontario within the last three years that has brought public awareness to the principles of freedom of conscience and freedom of thought.
Muslim women who cover their faces with a veil often arouse a broad range of negative reactions, even from people who are exposed to diverse ways of living through multicultural urban environments. Politicians, for example, have denounced the niqab for a variety of reasons, calling on Muslim women to simply take it off. Where such persuasion has failed, legislative attempts have been made, some successfully, to prohibit women from covering their faces in certain contexts, including courtrooms, citizenship ceremonies, public spaces, and while working in the public service. Using an intersectional feminist framework, Professor Bakht examines popular claims advanced to forbid women from wearing the niqab. She finds that objections to the niqab are rarely rational and are often fueled by the majority’s discomfort, fear or unquestioned certitude that their values are superior. She offers thoughtful observations on what such objections reveal about secular Western culture and why moving away from prohibitionist thinking would benefit society generally.
The OHS calls In Your Face a “thoughtful, well-researched study of the lives and experiences of Muslim women in Canada who cover their faces with a full veil”.
Earlier this year, In Your Face was named to The Hill Times’ 100 Best Books of 2020.
Founded in 1888, the Ontario Historical Society is a not-for-profit corporation and registered charity dedicated to the preservation and celebration of Ontario’s history for people of all ages and cultural backgrounds.
Congratulations to Professor Bakht on this exceptional achievement!
Click here for more information about In Your Face: Law, Justice and Niqab-Wearing Women in Canada.